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Even though they should be the merriest, that doesn’t mean that the holidays are stress free.
Family tensions can often flair during the holidays and cause mental distress. But did you know that the stress from your dysfunctional family could actually be causing you physical illness?
That’s right, your relationship with your family can impact your overall health and well being. According to a recent study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, your relationship with your family has a direct correlation to your health and risk for chronic illness. It seems not only do poor relationships with your family cause depression and anxiety, they can also raise your chances of other chronic illnesses.
The study was conducted with 3,000 people over a period of 19 years and focused on the quality of a person’s relationship with their family and their overall health and reports of chronic medical conditions. According to the results of the study, there was a correlation between those with poor family relationships and chronic health conditions. Family relationships seemed to have the most amount of impact, good or bad, on the subjects’ health and overall view and opinion of their health.
A little advice from the researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: “If you are sensitive to emotional stress, then being bathed in that stress would over time wear and tear on your body.” If that isn’t enough motivation for you to try and mend your relationship with your family, I don’t know what is. Go to a counselor, reach out for amends from your family or extend the olive branch yourself. Just do something. Not only will it make the holidays better, but you might actually live longer.